I’m a sentimental person, and I love giving gifts. I really, really love to see to look on the face of a loved one when I give her my Christmas gift for her. And sacred_essence is no exception. I remember the look on her face when she got the Gundam SEED Destiny RGB coffee-table book I got her last Christmas. So this year I promised myself I’ll outdo that.

So I went on my customary gift hunt (the Haro Quest, since I do know she wants a Haro, especially Pink-chan, more than anything in this world). But finding a Haro is tough, unless I buy online, which I barely do.

But luckily God smiled on me, because I found something I know she wanted as well – a 10-voice, superior I-doll of Lacus Clyne, voiced by Rie Tanaka, from BANDAI.

It’s not the newest figure in the market today, but I know SE liked it very much the first time she saw it on the Internet last year, and I also had a tough time looking for one in 2006. Thankfully, one of the hobby shops I frequent has it on stock, and with a Haro looking unavailable again, I bought the I-doll at the start of December.

So I kept the I-doll at home, and tried to keep it a secret, but SE eventually wormed its existence out from me. I tried to give it to her a couple of times, but she insisted that she’d get it on the 27th, when we’re gonna have the HERO TV Forum Christmas party. She said she wanted to have something to open for Christmas from me, even if I know she’s surely itching to get her hands on it. I really, really hope she’ll like it.

Yesterday, right after I got home from delivering gifts to my Mom’s amigas, I sat in boredom on my room’s desk. Boredom, specially for a self-confessed kender like me, usually ends up with catastrophic results for those around me. Being bored I thought up of ways to while away my time, when the light bulb inside my head flashed in inspiration – I decided to gift wrap the I-Doll.

I really came prepared for that. I already bought the gift wrapper for it (pink, like SE wanted), and I used the same kind of bag-and-wrapper combo I used for SE’s gift last year. I brought out my trusty scissors, Scotch tape and Elmer’s glue, and got ready for battle.

And being a certified dufus, it was a battle I lost. It was pre-ordained.

I know it looks like something stuffed inside of a filled-to-the-bream UPS airplane that did Immelmans and back-flips in the air, given its sorry state of gift-wrapping. This is concrete proof that I will never get a job as a postman or someone from UPS.

But I had to do it – I want to make Christmas special for SE. She has always been there for me, given how erratic my life has been this year. So I really wanted to make her smile.

Problem is, I probably would make her laugh with this display of dufus-ness.

But that’s what I do, and I don’t care if you all laugh at me (I suggest you do when you’re at least 100 miles away from me). There’s a saying that it’s not the gift that’s important, but the gesture. In this case, its not the gift wrapping that’s important, but the effort put into it.

A sorry excuse by a simple dufus like me, who just happens to be in love with the most wonderful girl this Christmas Day. But I don’t care, ’cause I know I’ll make her smile today – and that’s the best gift I’ll ever receive from anyone this holiday season.